Arlington Million card on target for Aug. 13

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It appears the precious commodity of time will enable Churchill Downs to host its first Arlington Million Day as planned.

All systems are go for Aug. 13, when four of six stakes on an 11-race Churchill card will be run over the turf course, which has had sufficient time to stablize after going unused since June 10. Nominations were released Tuesday for those stakes, led by the Grade 1 Arlington Million and Grade 1 Beverly D.

“The course is getting better by the day – way better,” longtime Churchill racing secretary Ben Huffman said early this week. “It’s greener, more lush, more filled out, more mature. All the rain we’re having is certainly welcome. Plus we still have more than two weeks until race day. Knock on wood, but, yes, everyone is comfortable with where we are.”

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The new $10 million turf course has been problematic since it was first used April 30, with widespread complaints by horsemen of loose footing and unusually large divots helping to shut it down following the fatal breakdown of a horse in a June 10 race. Churchill had intended to run four turf stakes over the Bermuda-hybrid course on its big Stephen Foster card July 2, but the decision was made several days beforehand to either cancel those stakes or move them to the main track.

Turf workouts were scheduled to be held Tuesday so that the course could be tested out, but those have been delayed “until probably sometime this weekend” because of weather, said Huffman.

The circumstances surrounding Churchill hosting its first Million Day are extraordinary. Churchill Downs Inc. shuttered Arlington Park in suburban Chicago last year, then announced in mid-March in conjunction with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Ellis Park that Churchill would run the Arlington signature events at its flagship track as a special one-day-only event. It briefly interrupts racing at Ellis in western Kentucky, where action will be held Aug. 12 and 14 amid a 23-day meet that goes through Aug. 28.

Besides the $1 million Arlington Million and $500,000 Beverly D., the two other turf stakes are the Grade 2, $300,000 Secretariat and the Grade 3, $200,000 Pucker Up. There are no other turf races in the condition book aside from the four stakes. Two new main-track stakes worth $200,000 each, the Fort Larned and Lady Tak, also will be held on a card that will start at 12:45 p.m. Eastern.

Million Day entries will be drawn Aug. 9. Chad Brown, who has been absolutely dominant on Arlington’s big day in recent years, has seven of the 35 nominees to the 40th Million and eight of the 29 to the 32nd Beverly D. Both races have been shortened to 1 1/8 miles from their traditional distances, with the Million formerly run at 1 1/4 miles and the Beverly D. at 1 3/16 miles.

Churchill will run its September meet from Sept. 15 to Oct. 2 and its fall meet from Oct. 30 to Nov. 27, with the turf course expected to be in use.